AERC Commission Meeting - Special Session - September 2025

So, pull this up. Let's do a quick roll call.

Doreen Brown? Here.

Ryan Ruhle? Ruhle, here. Ruhle, sorry. All right. Present.

May, are you here? Oh, May's here. Yes, I am.

Michael Mayberry is absent.

Antavia? Present.

Heather? Absent. And Stephanie? Present. All right.

Um, so today's special session was, uh, brought on because in our meeting we did not have enough time to hit up a couple items. It was, uh, B, audit case management plan, B, C, audit financial management plan. And D, audit information recordkeeping plan. Is that correct?

Yes. All right. So, um, has everyone had a chance to review the audit, uh, the audit itself yet? Um, I know we've got a couple new members and that's kind of popped in.

We've had a couple meetings now since the audit. These are the 3 major items that came out of it that we wanted to discuss in this meeting. There are a few other items that are tangential to it, but these are the primary. So this first one, the case management plan, um, I called you all up individually and we chatted a bit. And it sounds like— and for Jennifer, this is more for you— it sounds like we want to take a more proactive— as a group, we want to be more proactive in building kind of what it is we want to see.

But really, nobody in the Commission really wanted to be in the day-to-day. It was more about helping build the structure, finding out how we can support you. But the day-to-day left kind of to the director. So as far as case management, what can we do to support that? And because so far we're seeing good reporting, but what can we be doing to make sure that that's continuing and there's some kind of more long-term directive as far as that goes?

Yeah, I think the first thing that I think is going to be important for the Commission is, as we are undertaking a large shift in terms of expectations about investigations and completing our cases in a timely manner, I expect that there will be a much larger uptick in, uh, conciliation— I mean, in reconsideration requests and in public hearings, uh, that come your way, um, that have not been the case before. So I think really helping the Commission get whatever training you feel like will be helpful to learn about how to hear reconsiderations, how that works, to prep for public hearings if it comes to that, which is a very different sort of process than the confidential investigation process. And then continuing to, I think, ask questions and fine-tune your expectations of the monthly reports and the annual reports. So really thinking about, there's so much, being a data-driven person myself, There's so much I'm excited to look for at the end of the year from our data. Who are our, uh, complainants?

Where are we getting our complaints from? What sort of businesses are we seeing as repeat offenders, which has already started to happen? What can we do to be proactive with those specific companies that are repeat offenders? According to the title, we have jurisdiction to actually go after specific companies if we find that they're egregiously causing harm. So, but really, I want to take a preventative approach.

What can we do so that people aren't experiencing harm and we can take some of those patterns and really see, do we need to focus really on employment? Should we be in front of the chamber? Do we know to need to focus on housing? Should we be with the housing authority? So So really helping fine-tune those monthly reports and annual reports so that we can really make mission and data-driven decisions.

So I think as we continue to move through our meetings every month, we'll really fine-tune what that, what that looks like. So as far as case management goes, I think at this point we have a pretty, we have a better idea of what the timeline should look like. Awesome. But is there a way we could produce like a document that shows like a, a workflow of caller to how long it should take for a caller to get a response to how long it should take a caller to get to stage A, cases submitted, how it looks like, and then branches out to reconsideration versus not? Is there some way we could get some visual representation?

I think that would help some of the commissioners, especially new ones coming on, kind of know what that flow is. And yeah, so what I think we can do is on page 3 of the case management plan where we have the flowchart, we can include sort of expected or minimum timelines. So some of these stages don't have any mandated timeline, but some of them do. For example, uh, from the time we sign a complaint, we cannot hold a fact-finding conference any earlier than 30 days. We have to give the respondent a minimum of 30 days.

So like, that's a mandatory time period that's in here, but we could add the other sort of typical time periods and make it clear, like, what is a typical time period versus what is a mandated time period. And then also we can make sure the commissioners know, like, where are some of our pain points. So for example, our biggest time suck pain point is usually waiting on respondents' lawyers to get back to us with information that's critical. That's where we're finding right now where I'm seeing a big barrier. And so we've already started talking about relooking at our subpoena powers and maybe being a little more proactive with what we request and how we request it.

But yeah, I think that may be That makes a lot of sense. We can definitely add all of that information. I can have that to you for the next meeting. Okay. And then one of the things that Antavia has brought up in the past is where we were looking at the cases that have gone over, right?

And I know that number is going down. Um, what can we do to be proactive about getting those off the books? I think it'll look really good to get those numbers gone. But we want to make sure we're closing them out properly and that, you know, folks are getting them. We don't want to just close it out for the sake of closing out, but what, what can the Commission do to help with those?

Yeah, I think, so from my perspective, making sure that we, we discuss it during our meetings if possible, and I, I've started including that list of the cases including who the investigator is that has that case, looking at it from my office perspective in terms of what do we need to do to support that investigator. Does that mean we need to relook at how we're allocating cases? For example, Harley right now has most of the unclosed cases, so I don't want to— previously they were just randomly rotating who got the next case based on just sort of a restaurant server style, you're up next, and I want to be more proactive in taking a different look at the way we're allocating cases. I want her to focus on clearing those cases right now. So, like, I don't want to allocate her any new big cases until we clear that.

So continuing to have those discussions during our meetings, and then again, looking at where we're, where we're discovering I don't think anyone has done a deep dive in a long time about where we're actually having all of those pain points so that we can try and fix, address those things like the subpoena issue or waiting on.

Lawyers. So just again, continuing to, to ask questions and reflect on the reports and asking for additional information that you think is helpful. I know that the investigators, they don't have to come to this meeting. Most of them do anyway, but if you want to have them discuss issues, we can do that. And then I'm just continuing to ask them what support they need so that we can reallocate to get those closed out.

Okay, I think that would be a good idea. So there's 3 things so far with case management. One, the visibility flowchart with kind of like the times. Yep. Two, long-term cases.

It sounds like you said Harley's fully dedicated to those. Yep. If we can get a report on those at the meeting, just a high-level, you know, these are the cases, this is where they're at. And, and why, like, why we're at this point. And then we can kind of talk about what we can do to help her.

And then the third thing is the pain points. I, I don't— and I'm open to you guys telling what you think about this— I don't know.

I would love for all the investigators to come in and talk to us and, and give us that information. I think that at the meeting, it's such a short time window. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm either thinking we go out and interview and then come back with that information, or if one of them can kind of consolidate it and present it to the board. What are you guys' thoughts on that?

Yeah, we have a, um, we have a weekly staff meeting, so we can dedicate one of our next staff meetings to doing some brainstorming and collecting all of that information and collating that and bringing it back as well, if that would be helpful. Yeah, no, that would be awesome. It's almost looking at it like as an exit survey. Like, even if a case goes well, what went well? Why did it go well?

It's not only just looking at the negatives, it's also looking at what, what is efficient, what does help, especially amongst your team members, and capturing those specific things. So yeah, the pain points, but also the flow points. Yes. And that's something that's on— that we've talked about before that's on my long-term to-do list is, you know, we're doing the exit interviews now and closing things out, but that sort of process improvement of going back and just evaluating what went really well, what can we continue to replicate or expand. And the other thing too is just about giving grace.

You're new. And these are conversations that we're now having and knowing that we have our eye on that as well and giving you guys, you know, some time, but also knowing that we are looking at this and we are asking those hard questions. And I think the expectation for you as well is that it expedites, that these are people's lives that are in limbo. And so I think together, I think that we'll see improvement. I'll set the intention.

Thank you. Love it.

All right, is there anything else we want to go over as a group as far as case management goes?

So I, can you, I don't remember in the audit if they were, they lent them or talked about any of the databases. Was that something that was addressed within the audit? I'm sorry. Not recollecting. Are you talking about like the tool that they're using to run case management?

Yeah, so they didn't— correct me if I'm wrong, Jeffrey, but I didn't see anything specifically about the tool itself. In fact, I noticed a very distinct avoidance of it. So yes, and I have a feeling that that is because all of the MUNI tools are outdated, um, and tech, tech is just sort of a muni problem anyway, but that's something that we are moving forward on anyway. So next Friday we have our final, um, demonstration with Time Matters. We were able to get the money down significantly, and so we are moving forward with updating that system regardless.

So at the latest, we will have that system updated to the current version by January, and I'm hoping before then. So does that, does that relate to number 3, record keeping plans? Sorry, jumped ahead. Uh, sort of, yeah. I think it blends in.

Yeah, it sort of works with all of this. So yeah, that's definitely number 3 is what they were talking about that, but, um, the record keeping plan also was a lot with to do with, um, The, the, the operations manual. Um, and Tavia, what was that thing called they were talking about?

Who was talking about? Ate a little more of a jogger. It was the, it was that like the standard operating procedures of the, the group. Remember, like, here's the job descriptions, here's what each one does, here's what you do, here's like how we run this thing, like here's how a case gets handled. Yeah, our procedure manual.

Okay. And that actually has another— that's actually separate from these 3 plans. Okay. And that one's not due, I think, until November. Okay.

So—.

I'd like to say something. Yeah. I can't recall who—. Who—. How we got the deadlines that we set.

I don't know if we got those timelines from audit and we agreed, or did we suggest them, but I would like to know because we are deciding to go to a deep delve and take our time, and Jennifer is new. I don't—. If she needs more time and she needs more support, I'd like to know how we adjust that deadline so she doesn't have extra pressure.

If you need some, maybe we should ask Yes, I so appreciate that. I'm just saying, yeah, well, I'm just saying, what if we— is it a hard thing or what? Because I'm like, we're going to be asking questions of Degan, and I'm just kind of concerned, like, I don't, you know. No, I so appreciate, uh, that grace, um, and that comment tremendously. Um, but I— we have these three, the other two Maybe there's just— oh no, the other two are community engagement and the policy and procedure manual, and those are November.

And right now I'm feeling very comfortable with those, and a lot of the work for both of those had already gotten kickstarted through the investigators. So I'm feeling okay, but I will Definitely. Thank you. Let you know if that changes. Thank you.

Yeah.

I'm sorry, I'm having some sound issues.

Hey, Dorian, say something. Hello, what's your background? There we go, now it's working. Lon, what's in your background? Second time.

It's a Microsoft default background for, I think, a game they have called Halo. Okay. Yeah, I was using it today for work. Thank you. Um, so, all right, well, let us know if you need the time.

We'll figure that out. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Um, so as far as the case management, I think we're good to go. Let's proceed then to, um, B or C, which is the financial management plan.

This is the one that was a pretty big deal, um, for a while. Um, I think Barbara Jones was really pushing that pretty hard. Um, but it sounds like that's not as big of an issue now from what I've been hearing. We're not spending a lot of money in the first place. We don't have plans to spend a lot of money.

Um, and a lot of the bigger issues, which was on all the the book and the tchotchke stuff, like, that's not an issue either. So as far as the financial plan goes, I definitely think we need to set up some kind of budget. Um, we do have a bunch of stuff we want to do. There's like next year's summit we want to send some folks to. Um, we definitely want to have some form of outreach as far as whether it's a you know, a note of some of those little brochures or whatever it is.

And I know the office needs regular items as well, like fax machine or shredder oil, whatever that last thing was. Um, so how, how, how have you guys been coming along with like what you guys need for the office as far as.

Budget for that goes. Are you guys pretty comfortable right now, or, or is our finances kind of in the red? No, we are definitely not in the, the red. We are good. Um, we will finish the year, uh, above board, but every single penny is spoken for.

Um, uh, and then I put in a request for, uh, really an increase of $50,000.

For programming the software, which is the big one, professional development, outreach, all the things, all the things we've been talking about. So I put in that request and I worked very closely with the budget office, all 3 folks in the budget office. And then I ran every single penny by Barb Jones since she has the mayor's ear, uh, and she thought what we put together was really good. Um, and so at this moment, I'm feeling very optimistic, uh, about our chances in securing that. Um, yeah, the mayor could have scheduled a meeting if she had had concerns with me to discuss my request one-on-one.

And she did not do that, and I was told that was a good sign. So really, my next step will be I will have to go before the assembly when they discuss everyone's budget. And so I'm just in line on that work session day when everyone's talking about their budgets. And, um, I think we're going to be okay. Okay.

Yeah. So fingers crossed. So as far as that, every penny spoken for this year, when is the next fiscal year? It's January 1st. Okay, so they do the calendar year.

Okay, so if that's the case, for 2026, everything spoken for, $15,000 will be on top of that. What is in that request then? Yeah, I should have brought it. It is the Time Matters, which will go— that's the soft— the legal software we use, which will be a monthly fee. We were able to get that spread out monthly.

Um, so it will be the Time Matters, uh, request for funds for outside legal counsel for the times when we have to when we are representing a municipal employee and we have to have outside counsel. So funds for that, funds for professional development for the investigators to get increased training, outreach funds for us to be able to, you know, in the old days, whenever, however long ago that was, pre-COVID, really pre-COVID, when you wanted to go table at an event Tableing was either free or maybe $50, right? These days, I just saw one the other day that was in town that I was interested in attending, and I can't remember, I can't remember what it was. It was, it was some conference. Oh, at the, the Northwest, which represents the whole West Coast and Alaska, Human Resource Professionals, SHRM.

Human Resource Professional Conference is also in Anchorage in September, and that is a great organization to get in front of. And I think they were charging $4,000 to exhibit at the event in their exhibit hall. So we can't not be— we can't be everywhere. But there are some key Anchorage things we need to be at. So funding for outreach, uh, and then some travel as well.

Yeah, and I can, I can, um, for the next meeting I'll have the exact budget request I put in. It's just a one-pager, so I will, I will attach that to the executive director's report. Okay, um, I think it would help. One of the things that we end up getting a little blindsided by is we just don't know the budget, so I think that may be something if you guys— makes sense to you guys to get, you know, just the budget as far as what the prediction and the rolling spend is, um, and the items. Because I know that eventually we are going to start kind of tilting forward, we're going to start hitting events and stuff, and we're going to need capital for that.

Yeah. Um, but if we're, you know, everything's limited and spoken for, there's not going to be any. So we need to make sure we've got enough to grow Yes. And then like we talked about the event, I know there were a couple, like we wanted to send like 2 or 1, 1 or 2 folks to whatever that thing was. But I don't know if that's maybe a 2026 thing or maybe we look at that for 2027.

As far as the finances go and Time Matters, are you guys still looking to replace that? No, we are going to go with a Time Matters upgrade. Yeah. Okay. Yes, so it is, it is the only even remotely financially doable product.

Yeah. All right, so long as it works for you guys and so long as the municipality is going to support it, I think that's something that we're interested in making sure we're staying on top of that as a commission. We want to know that like IT is supporting the product, there's an owner, and that kind of stuff. Um, so we've taken— sorry, we've taken sort of a different approach with it, and we're— that is, that seems to be really successful this time around because there have been attempts to, to work on this before. And so I'm going this time through the IT project management team instead of the sort of purchasing requisition way.

I'm going through the IT project management team, and I know some of them from their connection to the project management degree program at UAA. And so I speak a little bit of that sort of project management, like Lean Six Sigma sort of, um, dialogue with them. And so their whole team came down and met with us, and we went through all the parameters and what we need and what the tech specs are and what they could do to support us. And they seem just really excited about, uh, the project, and they've been very responsive, and they're liaising with the Time Matters company and setting up our demo for us. And so, so far, I feel very comfortable with with the support we're getting.

Are they, are they running it as an actual project? Do they have like a charter and a plan for it, or are they, um, or is this just kind of going through? They are, yeah, doing the whole, the whole shebang. Can you bring us a copy of the charter? Yeah, I haven't even seen any of that yet, so yeah.

Yeah, that would be helpful. Um, we've I have personally seen this ball rolling for like 2 years, longer than that, like 4 years now. So yeah, this is one that we, we just, we really want to make sure we're staying on top of that and making sure you guys are getting that because this system in the last group was the biggest pain point. Like Harley really harped on how hard it is to do the job when you don't have a good system. So yeah, um, Absolutely.

Yeah. So, all right. Any questions about finances? Doreen. Doreen.

I'd like to propose a motion to create a subcommittee to list and make recommendations of events we can attend and to provide outreach. And then a timeline, you know, what would we do in 2026? Potential for 2027 and '28, sort of stagnating potentially. But I think being proactive with our approach— okay, my motion is really long. Hang on.

So, to create a subcommittee to present to the team a list of events the Commission will be present at in 2026, 2027.

All right, so the motion is to create a subcommittee that will investigate events that we can perform outreach at, et cetera, for 2026-2027. Do we have a second for this motion?

Second. All right, seconded by Ryan. All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? And the ayes have it. So Doreen made a motion. Ryan?

Second. Seconded. Passed. All right. Yay.

So, Doreen, do you want to run that? Yeah, I can run it. Okay.

I'm going to bug you. Yes, please. So, Jennifer, Doreen, anybody else want to be on that?

Kentavia, you already on one? All right, I'll jump on that one with you. So, Doreen, Ilan, Jennifer. Oh, whoops, that's the wrong area to write that.

What's a good target date for that, you think? November? Yeah. Okay. Man, November's going to be full.

Yeah. That's okay. November meeting. Yeah. All right.

I'll reach out to you guys after this then.

Anything else before we move on to the third item?

All right.

I thought this one was the book. So, Jennifer, do you mind telling us a bit about this one if you know anything about it? Yes, so this one is about from the audit. The dings were about our website not being up to date, us not following muni procedure about posting minutes and when the meetings were to be due, and basically not following the municipal requirements. So they fixed this instantly when that audit came out and made a list of all the things they have to do, and Maya's on top of that, and after every meeting she does the minutes and posts and does the public requirements.

And she went to training with people that oversee boards and commissions, so she's aware of all of that. So that's, that was where the audit ding part came in, was that part. Yeah. And, and so that, that all of that part has been addressed. And then the other part was just about starting to do more outreach communication using social media.

And tracking all of that as well. Oh, and then asset tracking, which hadn't been done either, but we've already started doing all that as well. So tracking our keys, tracking our computers, tracking our swag, just keeping spreadsheets so we know where all of our stuff is and where it's going.

So It did come up. Someone asked me recently, they were like, hey, how do I get to the Equal Rights site? And I said, oh, it's on muni.org. They jumped on it and they couldn't find it. So I'm just gonna— let me pull this up here.

And I was just looking at it myself trying to see if I could figure out how to get to it without searching for it, right? Like if you go to the MUNI page first or if you just Google Anchorage Equal Rights. Yeah, if you Google Anchorage Equal Rights, you can get to it pretty quickly. Yeah. That is all I really care about, I think.

But they were like, oh yeah, I went to muni.org 'cause this is where you get to in the, when you go to like the library or something. Yeah. And they were like, oh yeah, I've never submitted anything 'cause I just never could find it.

And I don't know if that's something like, are we important enough to be up here? Are we as important or more important than animal control? Things like that. Like, who's, who's, where's all the, you know, the traffic? So I don't know if there's a way for us to be a bit more visible on the page.

Yeah, I could definitely investigate that.

Because I'm just looking through this. Fire danger is over.

I love how potholes are second on the list there. Everything. Yeah. And what they said is they did try to Google Equal Opportunity, I think is what they said. Uh-huh.

And yeah, that's it. There is an Equal Opportunity Office, but it's different, right? But it brings up, you know, all this other stuff. So I told them just Google it and you'll get to it, and they were able to find it. But that was the only thing that I had from that audit was that just— but once you get to our page, our page definitely looks a lot cleaner now.

Um, the YouTube site has the, uh, videos. If you guys ever want to watch those, they're, they're a blast. Um, but, uh Yeah, so I know the MUNI right now just started a process to redo the entire website, every page. Um, uh, so that will be interesting, but maybe there's a place for us to, uh, knock our heads in there and, um, see if we can get a little bit more priority. We might also —So one of the things I'm going to find out when we have the Time Matters demo is a lot of those products now have like a portal interface where, where folks can fill out your form from accessing the web and it dumps straight into Time Matters, which is not what's happening now.

Like the Ombudsman's Office uses a different product that they do that, and they do have a button on that page. So maybe if we have that sort of portal, we're able to dump that in. Yeah.

But yeah, if you guys haven't had a chance to look at this, just give— take a couple minutes, go to this front page. You know, this right here is the Nkwuajigal Rights Commission. It's got just our little statement up here. This seems to be empty though. There's supposed to be an overview here of the commission.

Yeah, I think that there are some things that they have frozen and done weird stuff with because of the website changeover and like freezing some things. Okay. Um, and then if you guys need to see, if you guys want to look at like the old annual reports, they're all located here.

And then the executive reports are dropped in here as well. So definitely give yourself a couple minutes to familiarize yourself with that. If you think of anything else you want to see on that page or that might be helpful, let us know. Let's help them out and get that a bit more colorful. The other side is our Facebook is dead, right?

The last entries from October of '24. So recently Harley got an award.

Maybe we throw something, a little post in there and congratulate her from that. I know the last one was Harley, but, or maybe we put something in there to welcome our new director and new, the new employees that have joined us. Just something, anything to start buzzing some interest there, I think might help. Inviting participation as a commission commissioner. Say again, inviting applications for commissioner positions.

Yes, that is true. So expanding our social media presence, especially because that is one of the main means of communication right now, is really important to me. So getting an Instagram, expanding our Facebook, getting a professional LinkedIn that's attached to the Muni All of that's on this informational plan to really try and get out there.

All right, um, that is all we had for the agenda today. Um, are there any other items we want to talk about in relations to the agenda that was presented for this meeting?

All right. If not, we'll go ahead and adjourn. I'll make a motion to adjourn this special session. I appreciate you guys being here. Is there anyone who wants to second that, or do we just want to sit here ad nauseam?

I'll second. All right. All in favor of adjourning, aye. Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? And the ayes have it. Again, thank you all so much for being out here for this. I know it's a lot of work. Keep in mind, next meeting we need to get a new secretary.

So any of you interested in that position, please talk to me. We have to have this position. Kevin, If he hasn't already messaged you, Jennifer, he will. Yeah, he did. So Kevin is no— he's moving on.

Congratulations to his child. That's amazing. So, all right, everyone, thank you so much. Have a great day. Thank you.

Bye-bye now.